Interview
Carrie Preston Teases ‘Elsbeth’s Perfect Meet-Cute in Valentine’s Day Episode
Elsbeth‘s twice-as-long second season made room for more themed episodes. This week, The Good Fight spinoff delivers its first-ever Valentine’s Day episode, and Elsbeth Tascioni (Carrie Preston) is going to have a meet-cute that is perfectly suited to her eccentric existence.
Ioan Gruffudd guest stars as Angus, a Scottish musician who becomes an unintentional witness to a New York City murder from all the way in a Scottish seaside town thanks to a portal popup called “The Iris.” The giant screens with a live video feed become the setting for both the murder of the week and Elsbeth and Angus’ first meeting. (See Elsbeth’s first encounter with The Iris in the clip below.)
Will Patton played Elsbeth’s ex-husband, Mike Tascioni, in The Good Wife, but we haven’t heard about her love life in Elsbeth so far. So, why is the midway point of Season 2 the right time to bring a little love into her life? Preston tells Swooon that the writers wanted to make it clear that her life in New York was fulfilling without a relationship before introducing any kind of love story.
“Jonathan Tolins, our showrunner, and all of the writers, they really wanted to make sure that we built the world of Elsbeth around her as a woman reinventing herself in this new career, this new life that she finds herself in New York City, and that she doesn’t really need a romantic relationship in order to succeed at that,” Preston explains. “And so I think having a season and a half under their belts, they thought, ‘OK, let’s maybe, for the Valentine’s Day episode, see what that would be.'”
Preston says they wrote the perfect introduction to this story. “In the wonderful fashion of our show, they do it in such an unconventional way with this portal screen, with this person that she meets who is thousands of miles away in another country, in another time zone, and in another type of life,” the True Blood alum shares. “That was very clever of them to honor the show’s eccentricities in her love life as well.”
She says that it was easy to create this flirtatious dynamic with Gruffudd, who really is a charmer as the dreamy musician who’s completely smitten with Elsbeth.
“Oh, he was lovely,” Preston gushes. “He was so nice. He was so prepared. He’s Welsh, but he’s doing a Scottish accent. He had never done that before in his career, so he wanted to make sure that he was honoring that. I said, ‘Listen, honey, Americans are just going to think you’re dreamy no matter what accent comes out. Welsh, hybrid, Scottish, whatever. You’re going to sound great to us.'”
Michael Parmelee / CBS
“He’s also just a really great actor,” Preston adds, “so he was on top of the material. He was really respectful of the show. He had watched all the episodes. He understood the world that he was stepping into, and that always makes it a lot easier.”
See sparks fly between Elsbeth and Angus — and Kaya (Carra Patterson) and her roommate, Cameron (Sullivan Jones)! — in Elsbeth‘s first Valentine’s Day episode, “Tiny Town,” on February 13. Next week, Preston’s real-life husband, Michael Emerson, returns as the villainous Judge Crawford.
Elsbeth, Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS
